What is "Serial ATA Raid"?

[Mattlock]

Would someone help educate a newbie....what Is serial ATA or serial ATA Raid?

thanks,
Mattlock

Does anyone know where I can find answers to these type questions without having to clutter these boards?

 

[mechBgon]

You know the traditional flat 40-pin or 80-pin IDE cables used for hard drives and CD-ROM drives? That is parallel ATA, and serial ATA is an upcoming alternative that will use smaller cables and send data in serial order rather than parallel. RAID is explained nicely in the AnandTech FAQ's, and there's more info on Serial ATA as well. Go here and do a search for "RAID" and you'll find both 🙂 Serial ATA RAID would simply be RAID using SATA drives and controllers.

 

[Regalk]

Serial ATA is the new standard and interface for storage - should be hitting the shelves in 1st or 2nd qtr 2003 commencing at 150 speeds (compared to 133 for EIDE ATA devices as of current. End of the line for ATA133. Imagine what Serial ATA RAid will five you. My board is patiently for a serial ATA device (A7N8X).

 

[AnandtechViolator]

yea, bizarre that serial will outperform parallel, isn't it?

 

[Mikki]

Uhhh, why is that bizarre?

 

[shchong2]

Originally posted by: AnandtechViolator
yea, bizarre that serial will outperform parallel, isn't it?

Better protocol ..... faster performance.

 

[linster]

Originally posted by: AnandtechViolator
yea, bizarre that serial will outperform parallel, isn't it?

Hehe, I remember when doing direct cable connections between computers that parallel was the way to go. 🙂

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: AnandtechViolator
yea, bizarre that serial will outperform parallel, isn't it?

outperform?
it's like comparing a apples to oranges (oranges SATA)

the oranges are OBVIOUSLY better! 😀

no but seriously.. it more than outperforms it.. it utterly obliterates it.

 

[shchong2]

it's like comparing a apples to oranges (oranges SATA)

the oranges are OBVIOUSLY better! 😀

no but seriously.. it more than outperforms it.. it utterly obliterates it.

LOL ..... very interesting comparison.
yeh, "orange SATA" beats "apple parallel IDE" ... 😀

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: AnandtechViolator
yea, bizarre that serial will outperform parallel, isn't it?

It's bizarre I guess because parallel operations can be faster than serial - with parallel operation, multiple commands are dealt with at once; in serial, it goes in order, waiting for previous operations to finish. Example would be those supercomputers that use thousands of processors, or even the promise of quantum computers - performing many operations side-by-side at the same time is faster than doing one at a time.
But as shchong2 said, it also depends on the methods used to actually deal with the data that's being sent. The protocols that SATA uses are probably much better than the old ones used with regular ATA devices. IDE has been around for a long time; though it's been improved, I imagine that the core technologies used are still mostly the same as they used to be.